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Leafs Set To Battle Bruins in Boston

by
Staff Writer
/ Toronto Maple Leafs

MAPLE LEAFS (17-12-3) at BRUINS (17-9-6)

TV: RDS, TSN, NESN

Last 10: Toronto 4-3-1; Boston 5-2-3

Season series: This is the fourth and final regular-season meeting. The Bruins hold the advantage with a 2-1-0 record, although the Maple Leafs took the front end of their home-and-home series with a 3-2 victory at Air Canada Centre on Saturday. The Bruins have won four straight against the Maple Leafs at TD Garden.

Big story: Toronto and Boston get right back at it for its second game in the last three nights. The Bruins aim for a much better showing Monday than they got Saturday when the Maple Leafs had a 3-0 lead by the beginning of the third period. Toronto scored its three goals on just 11 shots against Boston before Anton Khudobin was pulled in favor of Bruins starting goalie Tuukka Rask. The Maple Leafs snapped an eight-game losing streak against the Bruins with the victory.

Team Scope:

Maple Leafs: It's not common that a team wins games by barely putting any shots on goal, but Toronto did just that against Khudobin on Saturday. But it should prove more difficult to get such a cushion against Rask, who is expected to get the starting nod from Bruins coach Claude Julien on Monday. Toronto will try to turn its road fortunes around as its 0-2-1 away from ACC for the month of March.

"We have three more periods in a very tough building where we haven't had success before and it's going to take a more intense effort than we had [Saturday] to go in there and have success," Maple Leafs coach Randy Carlyle told the Canadian Press following the win over the Bruins.

Bruins: Even the best need a rest from time to time and that was the case when Khudobin started in place of Rask. But Boston needs an improved effort the next time it relies on its backup as Khudobin didn't provide much of a challenge to the Maple Leafs' shooters Saturday. Boston starter Rask is third in the NHL with a 1.90 goals-against average and second in the NHL in wins and save percentageat 14 and .928, respectively.

Coach Julien was juggling his lines around in practice Sunday in hopes of providing a much-needed spark to a team coming off a tough loss to a big division rival.

"It wasn’t enough fight in our team [Saturday] to deserve to win,” Julien told the team's official website following the loss. “We’ve got to continue to battle, once we find a way to play three periods, like we did after we fell behind 3-0, we’ll be okay.”

Who's hot: Maple Leafs forward Nazem Kadri is in the midst of a four-game point streak with a total of three goals and six assists. ... Rask appears to be perpetually hot, even when his team is not. Although he is just 3-2-0 in his last five starts, Rask has a 1.75 GAA and .942 save percentage over that span.